New York Times, Nancy Pelosi cite fake General Flynn tweets

John SextonPosted at 3:01 pm on February 14, 2017

The New York Times published a story on General Flynn’s resignation which included tweets sent from a parody account. In the tweets, someone pretending to be Flynn said he was a “scapegoat for what happened.” Later in the day, Rep. Elijah Cummings cited the same tweets during a press conference. At the same press conference, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who said she hadn’t heard about the tweets previously, gave a description of a scapegoat to emphasize that other people at the White House should share the blame. Here are the tweets in question:

While I accept full responsibility for my actions, I feel it is unfair that I have been made the sole scapegoat for what happened. (1/2)

The Hill reports both the NY Times and Newsmax were taken in and quoted tweets from the account. The NY Times has since published a correction which states, “because of an editing error, an earlier version quoted three posts from an unverified Twitter account purporting to be Mr. Flynn’s, responding to the resignation.”

It seems House Democrats didn’t get word of the correction. At a press conference, Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, brought up Flynn’s “scapegoat” tweets during his statement about the need for an investigation. Cummings mentions the tweets about 4:30 into this clip:

After Rep. Cummings statement, Rep. Pelosi came to the podium and amplified his statement. “I didn’t know, until I heard from our colleague, that the tweet of General Flynn today was scapegoat,” Pelosi said. She continued, “Scapegoat. Do you know what a scapegoat is? That means in a community where people want to absolve themselves of guilt, they get a goat and they heap all of the ills onto the goat and then they run the goat out of town.” “So the inference to be drawn from his statement is that other people had blame that should be shared in all of this.”

Moments later, Pelosi was informed the scapegoat tweets were from a fake account:

One wonders whether some poor staffer working for Rep. Cummings is about to learn first hand the meaning of the word scapegoat.

The tweets in question come from an account that was created on February 1st and which has, until today, tweeted straight news as if it were the account of Gen. Flynn. However, the account now says “[parody account]” in the description. A short time ago whoever is behind the account pinned a tweet mocking the NY Times, Rep. Cummings and Rep. Pelosi: